


This Burning Love

by FestiveFerret



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Love, M/M, Pain, Recovery, mozzarella sticks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 20:17:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21277103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FestiveFerret/pseuds/FestiveFerret
Summary: Bucky was awake when he hit the ground.orFive Times Bucky's Metal Arm Hurt and One Time It Didn't





	This Burning Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewaythatwerust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewaythatwerust/gifts).

> For Rust - thank you for the idea, dear ;)
> 
> Thank you to ashy for speedy beta! <3

1.

Bucky was awake when he hit the ground. He didn't see where he landed, though, didn't see the snow puff around him in a cloud or the sharp rock that snapped through his shoulder blade, severing muscle and bone. He saw Steve's face, his horror as he reached from the train car too late and too far away. 

He never went numb, never fell unconscious, felt every nerve cry out at the shock and the destruction of being smashed to bits and left there to die. He knew he was bleeding, but all he could see was Steve's face. And all he could feel was pain.  


2.

He screamed the first time they made him use the arm. Even punching a heavy bag sent waves of needle-jabs up the arm that wasn't his and into his mangled shoulder.

"Why is he screaming?" a tech asked, clicking a pen against a notepad.

"It's the vibranium," another said. "His nerves are connected to the arm. The vibranium takes the energy it receives and transmits it upwards. He'll feel everything."

"Is that necessary?"

"Do you care?"

They trained him, honed him, sharpened him like a knife, and the pain was the background to it all, never lessening, never changing. Stable.

3.

The soldier watched, detached, as the car rolled off a cliff. A moment later, the red-headed spy rolled clear then grabbed the arm of The Target and pulled him behind the smoking carcass of the car. The soldier circled the embankment, looking for a clear line. But Red knew what she was doing. She put herself between him and The Target, her sharp eyes finding him with ease then darting up to the bridge, marking his two fellow snipers and his handler. They didn't have line of sight though. He did.

He raised his rifle, and Red ducked down and raised hers. A shot zinged past the soldier's ear, pinging off his metal shoulder and sending his ear ringing. He didn't flinch. He could feel the bones that were no longer there shattering, parting for the hot metal that should have torn straight through him. The pain vibrated down to the tips of each finger and back up through his shoulder to the centre of his chest where it dug in and settled down, ready to hibernate. 

He tipped his eye to the scope and fired. Red went down, and behind her, The Target went down too.

Mission Success.

4.

The car slammed to a halt, and even the soldier's arm couldn't get a good enough grip on the smooth metal to keep from tumbling off the roof. The momentum carried him through the air and he spun, landing on both feet, but with enough force left to roll him back down to the ground. He reached out and dug his fingers into the asphalt on pure instinct, sliding another ten feet, the vibranium of his hand sparking as it dragged across the roadway. He stopped and drew himself to his feet. He had one target down, three to go. 

His fingers were ripped raw from the friction, pain jolting up his arm as hot as the sparks on the asphalt, but he ignored it.

The car hadn't moved. Inside, two men, one woman. He could see the whites of the eyes of the man in the passenger seat and something that itched a little like memory tweaked at the back of his mind - a different kind of pain - but he ignored that too.

He had the targets in his sight.

5.

There wasn't much to do at Avengers Tower with Steve, and Bucky liked it that way. He didn't sleep much - didn't need to - and Stark paid for everything from a cleaning service to grocery deliveries, so he found himself with a lot of free time and not much to fill it. It was something he hadn't had in so long - maybe never had - that it took some adjusting to, but once he did, he was gloriously happy.

He worked out while Steve trained, headphones blocking out the grunts and growls of Steve and Natasha wrestling on the mats while he focused on a steady, easy jog on the treadmill. No one asked him to fight. No one even touched him without his permission. It was too good, sometimes, felt like it was going to be snatched away if he wasn't careful.

And Steve. Steve was just _ there, _but didn't press anything. They shared an apartment, but Bucky slept in the guest room. They sat on the couch every night together and watched TV, but Steve never touched him. He could feel the tension radiating off of Steve, the want, the desire. He knew how potent the urge was, to fall back into what they'd had before, back into each other's arms, but Bucky wasn't ready for that yet. He'd been a killing machine for so long, he couldn't quite trust his hands to bring pleasure and comfort yet. But he wanted to.

Just being in Steve's space, though, that was incredible. And Steve, thank god, seemed to feel that was enough too. 

So Bucky took it upon himself to learn other things, to find non-tactile ways to show Steve that he wasn't just floating here, he was living here. That he really was doing better, even if he would stare at Steve's lips through an entire movie and never once get the courage to kiss them.

He started drawing again, like he'd done back when he and Steve were both kids. He did sharp-lined technical-esque drawings of space crafts he'd imagined would be part of the future, flying cars and new planets. Steve drew animals and people and buildings, still life, and goofy cartoons.

And he started cooking. Stark ordered all the food, and most of it was pre-made, often delicious gourmet delicacies that Bucky could hardly bear to put in his mouth, as good as they were. But JARVIS would order anything you wanted, and after just a little time on the internet, Bucky found there were lots of things he wanted. Most of them came in brightly coloured packaging, had sprinkles on them, and contained more sugar than it seemed possible to fit in something so small. After spending far too long in the cereal aisle, Bucky finally discovered the wonderful world of frozen foods.

"Hey, Buck," Steve said, as the front door to the apartment opened and closed. Bucky didn't look up from the floor where he sat opposite the oven, waiting for the timer to go off. "What ya got this time?"

"Mozzarella sticks. They're breaded."

Steve hummed. "I think I've had those before. At a restaurant. They're good."

"I made enough for both of us. Pick a movie."

"Alright." Various rustles of Steve setting aside his gym bag and pulling on a sweater before sitting on the couch and hunting for the remote filled the apartment. It was safe and homey in a way Bucky never thought he'd ever get to see. "Nice that someone's using the stove. I'd kind of figured we were a microwave family from here on out. Not that I have a problem with that. I just kind of miss crunchy." Steve's face appeared over the edge of the island as he leaned across to smile down at Bucky. "Hey, you."

"Hey." A smile twisted Bucky's lips too. He watched Steve's mouth shift and widen then his tongue slipped out and ran over his upper lip. Bucky knew he stared a lot, but Steve didn't seem to mind, never seemed impatient. "How was training?"

"It was good. I -" A loud ding cut him off, and Bucky pushed up to his feet. 

He pulled open the oven door and looked down at the mozzarella sticks, a wave of dry heat slamming into his face in the wake of the oven door. He reached out with the metal hand and grabbed the edge of the baking tray, pulling it out of the oven to set on the top of the stove, but something gluey touched the bottom of his hand and he cringed. 

"You okay?" Steve asked, still watching from the other side of the island.

"Yeah. There's just something gross stuck to the bottom of this baking tray." Bucky lifted it up and looked underneath with a frown. It was a bit of the plastic packaging from the mozzarella sticks, that was now stuck to his fingers. It sizzled and burned against his metal skin, setting his nerves buzzing. "Gross."

Steve came around the edge of the island and stared down at Bucky's hand. "Buck… how could you tell there was something on the bottom?"

"What do you mean?"

"You couldn't see it… right? So how did you know?"

Bucky opened then closed his mouth. This felt like a trick or a challenge. There was something pivotal in Steve's eyes, and he didn't like it. Bucky shook his head slowly back and forth.

Steve chewed his bottom lip. His hands hovered awkwardly at his sides, eyes still fixed on Bucky's metal hand which he was holding out in front of him. "Bucky please tell me you can't _ feel _things with that hand."

"I… yeah. Of course I can. They wired it to the nerves in my shoulder. It feels the same as my other hand."

"But -" Steve stopped and cleared his throat. "It doesn't feel pain, though, right? That hot pan - what does that feel like to you?"

Bucky blinked down at his hand. "It burns."

Steve's face shifted through several expressions, all of them horrible. "Why don't you use an oven mitt, Buck?"

"It's - it hurts, but it doesn't _ damage. _I'm okay. It always hurts."

Steve pulled a deep breath in through his nose then let it out as a soft sigh. His fingers twitched out and brushed across Bucky's metal wrist. "Pain isn't only a problem when it damages, sweetheart," he said, the pet name so soft, Bucky almost didn't catch it. "You don't have to be in pain all the time."

Bucky had nothing to say to that. It was never a matter of "have to" it just… _ was. _ To _ not _ felt like more of an active choice than he'd ever had. _ You can choose to avoid pain. _ It was not inevitable. He couldn't quite believe it yet.

So he just shook his head again, sliding away from Steve's touch, and Steve backed off with a smile that was too close to a grimace. Steve went back to the couch and flipped through Netflix looking for a movie.

Bucky didn't touch the tray again, just plucked each mozzarella stick from it and placed them on a plate. He didn't even touch it to wash it. He turned off the oven and joined Steve on the couch with the plate between them to share.

They sat there, the movie a hush of human voices and dramatic music in the background, a careful cushion of space between them, and Bucky held his metal hand still in his lap and thought about why _ sweetheart _hurt more than the oven-hot tray did.

+1

Two nights later, Bucky tried his hand at cooking something that wasn't advertised towards five-year-olds or broke college students. He bought beets himself at the grocery store - real vegetables! - and set four of them boiling in a large pot. Granted, the main course was microwaved macaroni and cheese but it still felt like progress.

Steve, for his part, took all of Bucky's kitchen experimenting in stride, stating that, "Anything is better than the Army," and Bucky had to agree. The timer went off for the beets, so Bucky picked up a knife, twizzling it around his fingers then pressed it into the dark purple flesh. The beet was silky smooth and soft, giving easily to the knife-tip, so Bucky turned off the burner and reached to pull the first beet out of the pot.

Then he paused, his metal hand floating over the water. Steam sizzled up from the still-boiling water and coated his palm, burning as it condensed back into droplets. He looked over the kitchen island to the couch where Steve lay on his back, one knee bent, the other out long so his socked-foot dangled off the end of the arm rest. He held an e-book reader up high, and he was reading it with vibrating intensity, lip caught between his teeth. Bucky missed the days when books had covers so he could see what had Stevie so riled up. 

"Hey, Steve?" his mouth was saying before his brain had realized what was happening.

Steve turned from his book, looking over the back of the couch at Bucky. "Yeah?"

Bucky looked at the beets again, then at Steve. He lowered his hand. "I love you."

Steve's mouth fell open and his eyes widened. Then he snapped his jaw shut with a click, and his lips bloomed into a smile. "I love you, too."

At first, he thought it was pain, stuttering to life in his chest, but when Bucky relaxed and took a breath, he could find all the ways this was different. The thrill behind his lungs and the buzz under his skin didn't come with fear or horror, they came with delight. He hadn't said those words in seventy years, but he remembered how they felt, just barely.

Bucky nodded to himself and turned back to the stove. He found two forks in a drawer and meticulously plucked the beets out of the water and onto a plate. He peeled them and sliced them, then put them on plates with the macaroni. The beet juice ran out, dark red, but it didn't look like blood.

Bucky took the plates to the couch and sat down, as close to Steve as he could manage without being in his lap, shoulder to shoulder. Steve took his plate with a grin. "Thank you. It looks great."

"It looks weird."

"I like weird." Steve shrugged and speared a slice of beet. He popped it in his mouth, leaving a streak of purple juice along his lower lip. "Mmm. They're sweet!"

Bucky reached out and swiped the juice away with his metal thumb then left his hand there, knuckles against Steve chin. Their eyes met and they hung there, side by side, then Steve bent slightly and brushed his lips against Bucky's thumb in a featherlight kiss.

And that - that Bucky could feel.


End file.
